"Series D funding will support the rollout of our next-generation 40-nm families targeting support of the explosion of sensors in handheld applications as well as support of DVI and MIPI interfaces designed for video, multi-display, and high-bandwidth memory interface applications," said Kapil Shankar, CEO of SiliconBlue, in a statement.

SiliconBlue, founded by Shankar—a programmable logic veteran with more than 20 years experience at market-leader Xilinx Inc and elsewhere—has now raised $73.8 million in four funding rounds. The company has been breaking new ground with its low-cost, low-power FPGAs in battery-based handheld products, a product market that has traditionally been a tough sell for FGPAs.

As has been discussed before, to have a custom chip built in the technologies used in cell phones, it has to be very high volume to offset the design and tooling costs. An FPGA that meets the low power requirements could stay in the socket indefinitely. They would then have the freedom to make changes quickly as market conditions change.